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    Nether
    Nether
    Nether
    Ebook138 pages2 hours

    Nether

    By Sean van der Wath

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    An unsuspecting teens becomes a conduit for an ancient darkness to release hell on Earth. Will she survive? Will anyone survive?





    At the center of Earth there lies an ancient darkness. A darkness that can finally reach from its lair after several millions of years. No one on Earth experiences this darkness more than Elizabeth Huxley; she is haunted by this mysterious force from a young age. The strange black secret never seemed to pose a physical threat to her, that is until she starts her high school career, and it kills one of her classmates. Elizabeth decides to reveal the truth of this unnatural entity, that seems to follow her around to the people in her life, but no one believes her. She is institutionalized and diagnosed with Delusional Disorder.





    While being treated for her alleged problem, Elizabeth’s dead classmate rises from the Nether realms with the very same darkness that has stained Elizabeth’s life now residing in her. The classmate in question kills a number of people with the help of the darkness. To the darkness, Elizabeth is the gatekeeper, the only one that can help it reach the earth’s surface once more, and therefore, she needed to be captured and kept alive. Her life gives it life. But Elizabeth manages to escape the clutches



    of the darkness and its newly turned followers, for the time being at least, with the assistance of a very resourceful detective from the local police department. They are, however, soon cornered and Elizabeth has to face the menacing darkness for the sake of herself and Earth…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTouchPoint Press
    Release dateSep 15, 2017
    ISBN1946920207
    Nether

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      Book preview

      Nether - Sean van der Wath

      cover.jpg

      NETHER

      ..................

      Sean van der Wath

      TOUCHPOINT PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2017 by Sean van der Wath

      Published by TouchPoint Press

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      ISBN: 9781537856094

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      NETHER

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Epilogue

      NETHER

      ..................

      An ancient darkness awakens.

      Sean van der Wath

      Those poor souls taken by the Darkness, will never know the light again.

      Unknown

      Nether (neth·er \ˈne-thər\)

      1: Situated down or below

      2: Situated or believed to be situated beneath the earth’s surface

      PROLOGUE

      ..................

      AT THE CENTER OF EARTH there sleeps an ancient darkness. A darkness so powerful not even the fabric of reality can hold it. A menacing power as bound to Earth as any other living organism on the surface. A power very few know. It consumes while it sleeps. It consumes anything and everything that resides within its vicinity, even the structure of reality as it wakes. It wakes ever so eagerly when it’s called upon to do so, when the time is right and fate decides that its presence is needed.

      Follow the events when it awakens again, as it has done before to bring destruction, to reach up from its ancient lair through the living creatures on the surface of Earth, and usher in the coming of a darkness so complete none will have the power to stand before it.

      None except...

      CHAPTER 1

      ..................

      YOUNG ELIZABETH HUXLEY LAY UNDER her covers with a flashlight. She lit up the confines of the duvet with it. It always helped a little bit to pull the covers over her head, to stick her head in the sand like the ostrich her mother always joked about. Elizabeth was six years old and at the moment terrified of what she had just witnessed in front of her bed.

      It happened mostly when we were fighting... Did it happen before?

      Tonight before Elizabeth had gone to bed was, unfortunately, one of those nights when a confrontation with her mom was inevitable. Susan Huxley had come home late from work. Elizabeth recently learned that attempting to trigger her mother’s irritation when she was overworked was not a good idea. Still a young child tended to make mistakes. She mainly struggled to understand the whole concept of why her mother needed to work herself so hard. The ways of the world, the need to work to live, were ideas that Elizabeth’s six-year-old mind had a hard time processing. Elizabeth had attempted one of her signature techniques of refusing to eat the microwave dinner her mother had hastily fixed them after arriving home. Her mom exploded at what was her daughter’s inconceivability of the harsh realities of the world and sent her to her room without dinner.

      Elizabeth had slammed her door after the confrontation and plunged onto her bed. Her room probably contained more than would be affordable for a parent with the income of her mother. It was a relatively dark-colored room (dark blue) because ever since she learned about color she had always been drawn to the deeper colors of the spectrum. It was a characteristic of her daughter that Susan Huxley chose to acknowledge but not bring up much. Still, Elizabeth was given leeway and her mom had furnished and painted her room according to her daughter’s wishes. Across from the single bed Elizabeth sat on, fuming at her mother, was a small desk with a comfortable purple chair. The desk contained drawings and coloring books along with dolls and other things one might find in the room of a young girl like Elizabeth. Her closet door stood open, revealing a respectable wardrobe. However, none of these comforts seemed to matter to Elizabeth as she sat on her bed, staring at the wall, and replayed the confrontation over and over in her mind.

      She would rather spend her time away from me.

      The thought was the underlying subject of all the ideas running through her mind, and pretty soon she was at the stage where she considered running away. At that stage, fear began to creep over her, smothering the fire of anger she had kept alive only moments ago. All that remained now was a cold feeling that chilled her to her bones.

      And then it happened.

      While she was still stuck in her gloomy emotional state, she suddenly noticed a very strange vision before her. Halfway across the room, in front of the wall she had unintentionally stared at, hung a small dark hole. It was one of the oddest sights Elizabeth had ever seen. It appeared solid, almost more real than the rest of the objects in her room. Fascinated, frightened, and unable to look away, Elizabeth concentrated on the phenomenon, peering into the endless blackness. After an inconceivable amount of time, she unexpectedly felt the need to get as far away from the dark abyss as possible. The terror arose from deep inside, her primal instincts telling her to fight or flee—there was no way to fight such a thing so that only left flight.

      There is something in there, looking out at me.

      The thought shook her delicate mental control. She scrambled to pull her duvet over her head again, and she grabbed her flashlight. This was a defense mechanism she had learned as a young child while building make-believe houses with her mother in the living room out of numerous blankets. She would build her shelter and invite her mom to have tea with her in her new surroundings, locking them away from the outside world. And now, as she lit up her sanctuary with the flashlight, she attempted to gather her strength to see if the hole still hung there. She drew in several deep breaths and slowly lowered the duvet.

      It was probably just my eyes playing tricks on me... like mom once told me.

      Yet the fear remained, her reassuring thoughts doing nothing to weaken the grip it had on her mind.

      She slowly lowered her shelter, and the view of her room came back to her.

      To her great relief, it seemed that the hole she had imagined was no longer visible. A torrent of hope crashed over her like waves crashing onto a beach.

      I probably just imagined it...

      She got slowly out of bed and walked to the area where she thought she had noticed the horrible vision. Everything seemed normal; the light from her desk lamp illuminated the area where she thought she had seen the hole. In fact, the thought of it seemed to be fading more and more from her mind as she unconsciously banished the idea of such a bizarre experience. She walked to her door and reached for the knob, intending to go and try to salvage things with her mom. Suddenly she stopped, an eerie feeling came over her, and she slowly turned back around. The hole was back.

      It was pitch black, as black as the blackest corners of the underworld. It seemed to have an overbearing presence of life, even though no life could ever exist in such a dark pit. Yet it was not the absence of light that terrified Elizabeth. It was the confirmation, that there definitely was something looking at her from within that abyss.

      As she stood staring into the void, she sensed an energy come to life from within the hole.

      It was all too much. In an instant, all feeling and consciousness fled from her young mind, and she tumbled to the floor, blacking out.

      CHAPTER 2

      ..................

      SUSAN HUXLEY WOKE SUDDENLY IN the adjacent room, her brown eyes filling with life as she sat up in her bed. Her mind was foggy and unresponsive as she tried to recall what it was that had woken her. She looked around her room and saw nothing out of the ordinary in the limited light. A pale moon shone through the lone window, lending a small degree of light to the floor in front of her bed. Shadows cast by her wardrobe and bedside table danced in that light. She swung her feet to the side of the bed and got up. She collected her gown from the chair standing next to her bed and slipped it on while making her way to the door. She opened it and moved down the hallway of the small apartment she shared with her daughter. Her mind cleared as she walked, becoming more in tune with her surroundings now that it was starting the conscious process of willing her body to move again. The light was dim but the hallway was no more than a couple of feet long. Reaching her daughter’s door she stood a moment to listen.

      The room was dead silent.

      Susan reached for the knob and opened the door slowly. Light spilled from the room, and then, surprisingly, the door stopped moving. Its swing was interrupted by something on the inside. It was opened only a quarter of the way, and Susan could not make out what was blocking her way. She did not force the door. Maybe it was the late hour or the tiredness in her bones, but she opted not to use her strength to try and push it open. And later she would be glad that she had.

      Something Elizabeth had left by the door?

      Susan tried to push her head through the slight space, and managed it to some extent.

      She was filled with panic as she looked into her daughter’s room.

      Elizabeth was lying on the floor, seemingly unconscious, acting as a doorstop. Susan

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